Amazon Now Using Amazon.BlackFriday

As Frank Schilling announced via Twitter this afternoon, Amazon is now using the Amazon.BlackFriday domain name. .BlackFriday is a new gTLD extension that is operated by Uniregistry.

The company is not using it as a standalone website, but they are forwarding the domain name to a 2014 Black Friday deals landing page within the Amazon.com website. I would not be surprised if the company is using Amazon.BlackFriday in marketing materials.

Some people might pooh pooh the fact that Amazon is using Amazon.BlackFriday as a forwarder instead of a full blown website, and I don’t agree with the sentiment. Amazon owns quite a few new gTLD domain names, and it does not appear that the company is using them (yet). For example, the company owns but is not yet using Amazon.NYC, Amazon.Holdings, Amazon.Tattoo, Amazon.Insure, and probably many others I did not check. I don’t think it would be wise to syphon off any traffic to an alternative website, especially given the importance of Black Friday shopping.

Amazon is also using some other new gTLD domain names as forwarders in addition to Amazon.BlackFriday. For example, the company is forwarding the following domain names to its main Amazon.com website: Amazon.Gift, Amazon.Gifts, Amazon.Club, and likely others.

This would indicate to me that the company is selectively using domain names it feels will be beneficial. Since Amazon itself is a new gTLD applicant, it will be interesting to watch how the company’s domain name strategy evolves over time.

About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, LLC, a company that has sold seven figures worth of domain names in the last five years. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest.

This is a dud of an extension. The 11,000 registered domains doesn’t look so bad until you realize that 10,000 of them are register by North Sound Names. For those that don’t know North Sound is owned by Frank Schilling (Uniregistry) which owns .BlackFriday

So only 1,000 names are really registered and I am sure the majority are by domainers which leaves maybe a couple hundred by real brands.

Justin, there is no clear answer. On one hand you have the GTLD’s in regards to URL navigation, and consumer education to deal with. Then since many are with different companies, that have different rules of operation that is another liability. Now If I want to open Seattle.Market right now my cost of entry is $55,00 per year for use of the URL, now if Donuts wants to double that to $100,000 next year, there is no contract in stopping them from doing so. Say I get $10,000,000 VC injection, and they want to up it to $1,000,000 per year for renewal, same thing again.

Look at what Mind & Machines did 2 months after the fact, charged regular renewal, then went back and asked for $3,xxx per year for subpar names.

For the most part many registries are not helping their cause.

Uniregistry has been decent in not charging premiums, and having some of the lower renewals.

At the end of the day these are intangible URL’s, that should not have these kind of renewals. Many people are willing to deal with high barrer to entry, but then want structure going forward.

It is almost like living in a country with no rule, the government can come, and take your home, and assets away at anytime, and you have limited recourse.

Tell me how many .engineer, .market, .lawyer, .attorney you got your hands on Justin? If you want MyWeb.Host is available for $6,000 per year, if all goes well that is only $60,000 per decade, remember you still need to run a business on that which generates at least $500 per month just to pay your domain renewal bill.

John Colascione on I Bought a 4 Word .com Domain Name@Dave, I actually read this post yesterday before looking into it again. It had been a year since I revisited the list. This post was

Arockiam J (@Arojagan) on I Bought a 4 Word .com Domain NameActivatingDesire, ActivatingServices would have been a better name than just activating. If only two domains available say Activating.com and LickMyNose.com which one you will buy?

DomainInvesting.com is an award winning publication covering the specialized business of domain name investing, domain investment news and strategy. The publication is a news source for domain name sales, domain industry deals, and other topics related to domain investing and domain name branding.